Out of the kindness of their thread-manufacturing hearts, Kreinik has sent me a sample of all their new threads for the spring for review. In the photo above (top row down, from left to right) you see:

Top Row
The new Easter Grass, a clear 1/8" ribbon thread that does look like that artificial grass you find in Easter baskets, which I've heard stitches up into great window glass;

Two new colors in the holographic thread line--042L Solar Flare which is a very pretty red, blue and gold mix that would make great highlights in a geometric design that was mostly red and blue and;

028L Optic Opal which is a very yellow gold that seems to have green highlights. If you need Screaming Yellow for the gold coins at the end of the rainbow, this is the thread for you! By the way, both spools are the #8 fine braid size.

Second Row
This row is the new 4200 line called New Naturals which replace the 4000 series of colors which were discontinued because the Kreinik Company couldn't get the base materials any more. All of these spools are the #8 fine braid size.

From left to right, the colors are--4006 Rosehip (a very pretty medium pastel pink), 4205 Ironwood (a muted tarnished silver), 4204 Storm Cloud (tarnished dark silver that would shade very well with 4205), 4203 Cattail (an olive-brown-gold mix which would work as darkly tarnished treasure or would make a beautiful accent color), 4202 Dusky Meadow (a medium chocolate brown, which is hard to find in a metallic thread), and 4201 Sugar Cane (a pretty grayish-green). I think I have most of the original 4000 series which this replaces, so I will compare the two versions later and let you know if they are good matches.

Bottom Row
These are the new Hot Wire threads, all #16 medium braid Kreinik with a thin wire threaded through the middle. There are more colors than I realized. From left to right they are:
001W Silver, 002W Gold, 003W Red, 005W Black, 009W Emerald, 015W Chartreuse, 5700W Cotton Candy, 5725W Lollipop Lemon, and 052FW Grapefruit (this is the glow in the dark cream color). In most cases, these seem to be identical to the regular Kreinik colors but with wire inside. 001 and 002 are the normal silver and golds, so look for the W at the end of the number to tell a spool of regular 002 gold from a spool of 002W gold with wire inside. However, the wired version of 5700 Cotton Candy is slightly lighter in shade than the unwired version. That may be partly because the spools of each (they are both pictured above) are different diameters. My 5700 is #8 fine braid while my 5700W is #16 medium braid. That does make a difference in the visual impact. So if you are using wired and unwired versions of the same color on a piece, the colors may or may not be an exact match. I think they will be close, but perhaps not identical. Keep in mind that the surrounding colors will effect how the two types of Kreinik look, so even if the wired and unwired versions are an exact color match, they may not look the same because one is next to bright blue while the other is next to dark orange.

I'll report further on these threads as I have time to use them. Many thanks to Dena at Kreinik who offered these to me and to the kind person who prompted Dena to ask if I'd like them.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com